Page images
PDF
EPUB

Sidney

Lanier, born in Georgia, 1842; died in North Carolina, 1881.

His sonnets are especially beautiful, and some of his war songs are very strong and spirited. Probably his best work is in the style of meditative communion with nature. He has left us beautiful lines in this vein; and they are of special interest as representing so different a type of natural scenery from that mirrored in the work of the New England poets. The sonnet below well illustrates his delicate art and the earnest, pure character of his thought.

FATE, OR GOD?

Beyond the record of all eldest things,
Beyond the rule and regions of past time,
From out Antiquity's hoary-headed rime,
Looms the dread phantom of a King of kings:
Round His vast brows the glittering circlet clings
Of a thrice royal crown; behind Him climb
O'er Atlantean limbs and breast sublime,
The sombre splendors of mysterious wings;
Deep calms of measureless power, in awful state,
Gird and uphold Him; a miraculous rod,
To heal or smite, arms His infallible hands;
Known in all ages, worshipped in all lands,
Doubt names this half-embodied mystery - Fate,
While Faith, with lowliest reverence, whispers

God.1

Another representative of the loss and suffering entailed upon the nation, and especially upon the Southern States, by the war of 1861-1865, is Sidney Lanier. He graduated from Oglethorpe College, Georgia; but immediately enlisted in the Southern army, and served through the war, suffering from exposure and imprisonment, and probably thus breaking down his health. His life was a pathetic struggle Copyright, 1882, the Lothrop Publishing Co.

1

[graphic][merged small][merged small]

with disease and weakness of body, a struggle not so much for health and more years of existence in the world, as for strength and time to utter the thoughts and test by experiment the principles of whose truth he was profoundly convinced. He taught school and practised law for a time; and was lecturer on Literature at Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore. This, with a short list of his publications, is the meagre outline of a life to whose worth and real interest it does scant justice. He was an accomplished musician, the flute being his favorite. instrument; this musical tendency having a great deal to do with his literary work. He was a student, with an acute, theorizing cast of mind, and worked out for himself an elaborate theory of poetical composition; which he has stated in his book, "The Science of English Verse." The essential point of the theory is implied in the title. Verse, in his view, is an art, resting upon a science which needs only investigation to be capable of a statement as definite, positive, and complete as that of any other science.

He published, in 1867, "Tiger Lilies," a prose romance based upon his war experiences. In 1880 appeared the formal statement of his theories of versification, in "The Science of English Verse." A course of lectures on the "English Novel," delivered at Johns Hopkins University, was published in 1883. Books written probably with first reference to the pressing financial needs of his life were the series of reproductions of old English legends and ballads: "The Boy's Froissart," 1878; "The Boy's King

Arthur," 1880; "The Boy's Mabinogion," 1881; “The Boy's Percy," 1882. His poems appeared at various times, in various periodicals; the one which first attracted general attention being "Corn," which was published in "Lippincott's Magazine," Philadelphia, 1874. This gave him recognition as the most important poet from the South; and as such he was. chosen to write the words for the Cantata, with which the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia, 1876, was opened; Whittier writing the "Hymn," and Bayard Taylor the extended poem. A collected edition of his poems was published after his death, in 1884, edited by his wife Mary D. Lanier. Lanier's theory of verse is at the opposite extreme from Whitman's. He believes that all expression in words is essentially musical; the difference between speech and what is usually called music being that speech has far greater variety of tone. Hence his poems are remarkable for their elaborate and beautiful study of tone. No one has shown such mastery of the possible modulations of sound. It is not that he sacrifices thought to sound; but that, to an unusual degree, he seeks to fit thought and sound together. E. C. Stedman expresses the difference between Lanier and other poets in this particular by saying that Lanier would add to melody, harmony and counterpoint. There is a possible analogy between his theory of the relation between thought and sound in words, and that of Wagner as to the relation between music and text in the music-drama. Not only must the thought be words, but the sound must be

expressed in musical

« PreviousContinue »